Two Months After Its Oscar Win, Could Picturehouse Be Closing Its Doors? [Strictly Business]

Links (5)

Picturehouse Tumbling Down?
Published 5/2/2008 at Hollywood Elsewhere
Picturehouse Tumbling Down? Somebody help me out here because this is weird. Warner Bros. has two dependent distribution arms, Warner Independent and Picturehouse, under its wing, and Defamer 's Stu Van Airsdale is reporting that Picturehouse, seen by most veterans of the trench as the more shrewdly guided, successful and geared-up of the two, may soon be shut down? What ? A well-sourced story by Variety 's Anne Thompson will be up momentarily with a more complex portrait of the situation. I just tried to reach Picturehouse chief Bob Berney but no dice. If Thompson's ...

Whither Picturehouse and WIP?
Published 5/2/2008 by Variety.com * at Thompson On Hollywood
... Obviously if Warner Independent Pictures and New Line orphan Picturehouse merge, Picturehouse and its nifty logo will disappear. But if Warners is planning a bicoastal two-headed structure with Polly Cohen on the left coast and Bob Berney on the right, then the people who survive the purge will be part of WIP, and Picturehouse will be folded into the Warners universe. ...

"THIS 'INDIE' PART OF THE BUSINESS"
Published 5/5/2008 by Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker Magazine
... in Variety stating that WIP head Polly Cohen and Picturehouse head Bob Berney "are likely to accept a bicoastal co-head arrangement." Stu Van Airsdale at Defamer ran his own story, saying that there are rumors that Berney will be "starting fresh at a new company underwritten with hedge fund cash." Now, at the end of the weekend, ...

Picturehouse on the Way Out?
Published 5/5/2008 by Eric Kohn at Cinematical
Filed under: New Releases, Executive shifts, New Line, Warner Brothers, Warner Independent Pictures, RumorMonger, Distribution, Other FestivalsNear the end of last week, Defamer spread the rumor that Picturehouse, once the indie arm of New Line Cinema and currently dangling from the edge of the hulking entity known as Warner Bros., has its days numbered. Now that New Line is history and Warners, like many studios, has faced increasing cutbacks, it may give short shrift to the ...

Good Night and Good Luck
Published 5/8/2008 at Hollywood Elsewhere
... to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros." So except for Clint Eastwood 's Gran Torino and the occasional lucky-accident movie that may rank as award-worthy, Warner Bros. seems to have basically taken itself out of the quality-driven prestige movie business. I wonder what really happened? What led to the breakdown of the merger talks? It turns out that Defamer 's Stu VanAirsdale was fairly close to the money when he reported that Picturehouse may soon be shut down , and that Anne Thompson 's Variety story about the same ...